FT383 39“HEALTER SKELTER” (sic), the bloody
writing left at the LaBianca residence,was
a reference to “Helter Skelter”, a Lennon
and McCartney song from the 1968
albumThe Beatles(akaThe White Album).
Paul McCartney named the song after
the traditional English fairground ride
and claimed its lyrics about ascents,
descents and return trips“back to the
top of the slide” were meant to evoke
the “rise and fall of the Roman empire”.
It is likely that McCartney also had the
post-1960s state of the British Empire
in mind. Anthony Mann’s filmThe Fall of
the Roman Empirehad made the rounds
in 1964 and this, combined with the
continuedavailability of its source text,
Edward Gibbon’sDecline and Fall(1776-
89), had helped to establish “the ruins
of Rome” as a tool for understanding the
increasingly de-colonised state of Britain’s
overseas territories.^1
Manson had heardThe White Album
shortly after its release in November
- ‘Helter Skelter’ along with John
Lennon’s ‘Happiness is aWarm Gun’
and George Harrison’s ‘Piggies’ became
touchstones for him and the internal
beliefsystem hewas generating for
the Family. (The word ‘Pig’was found
scrawled in SharonTate’s blood on the
front door of 10050 Cielo Drive, while
“Death to Pigs”was written on thewalls
of the LaBianca home in the victims’
blood).
Manson believed the Beatles were
trying to communicate with him directly,
and what he got from the songswas not
a reflection on Empire but a message
of imminent societal breakdown. “Look
out”, said ‘Helter Skelter’, things are
“coming down fast”; life’s “getting worse”,
said ‘Piggies’, because the“bigger
piggies” in their“starched white shirts”
are “Stirring up the dirt”. They need
“a damn good whacking”, an intention
that would lead to the empowerment,
satisfaction and“happiness” of the
“warm gun”. Ensconced at the Spahn
Ranch, a dilapidated former movieranch
on the Santa SusanaPass, the Family
allowed this paranoia to boilaway until
‘Helter Skelter’ came to name an event
they were actively preparing for.
Whether Mansonreallybelieved this
weirdly messianic personal narrative,
the outline, as prosecutorVincent
Bugliosi discovered during the trial
proceedings, went as follows. Themodus
operandiof the Familywas to incite an
apocalypticrace war between black
and white America. They would do this
by committing atrocious acts of murder
in the homes of affluent white people,
leaving suggestive evidence that the
perpetrators were black. In the general
chaos, as decades ofracial tension
and mutual distrust came to the fore,
the Family would retreat to the desert
of DeathValley in a convoy of high-
powered dune buggies and descend into
a secret subterranean world. There, in
the company of the Beatles themselves,
they would sit out the destructive
black revolution. They would hide until
the members of the newly sovereign
black nation inevitably faltered in their
unfamiliar role as leaders. At which point
Manson, his growing band of disciples,
and the Beatles would re-emerge from
“the bottomless pit” and assume their
place as rulers of the new dawn. This
was ‘Helter Skelter’: the moment when
the world as we, the squares and the
straights, knew it would end and all that
remained would come down to Manson
as his rightful inheritance.^21 Origins of ‘Helter Skelter’ discussed in Barry
Miles,Paul McCartney: ManyYears from Now
(London:Vintage, 1998), pp487-488; ‘Ruins
of Rome’ from Piers Brendon,The Decline and
Fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997(London:
Vintage, 2008) p.xv.
2 Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry,Helter
Skelter(USA:W.W. Norton, 1974), p76, pp324-
334.HELTER SKELTER: MUSIC FOR THE END?Charles Manson believed The Beatles were communicating with him directly and chose the band’s
White Albumas the soundtrack to his apocalyptic programme for social breakdown in Sixties AmericaABOVE: A poster for the 1976 film starring Steve Railsback as Manson.BELOW: A graffiti-covered
door retrieved from the Spahn Ranch, with ‘Helter Skelter’again, but differently, misspelled.